🚀 go-pugleaf

Daniel Grimwood <reaper@crystal.uwa.edu.au> wrote
in message news:7pidlm$aff$1@enyo.uwa.edu.au...
> Aaron <chaaron@lave.net> wrote:

>> With multiple partitions, I might run out of space on one of
>> them, although I haven't ever ran out of space.  But if I did,
>> it would only be on one drive, like G: Games, or H: Apps.
>> I still can install other programs to another drive, and there is
>> no problem with Windows working, because drive C: is not full.

> How can the single partition drive be filled, but the
> the multiple partioned drive's c: still have room?

It is theoretically possible due to the cluster size. With the
multiple partitions having smaller clusters, less wasted space.

Its pretty theoretical tho when you get the other effect, the total free
space on the drive being scattered over the multiple partitions and
with the FAT32 we were discussing how to partition the drive with.

>> Other than having sizes of drives set right, what is limited?
>> At the DOS prompt, I can go from a directory three levels
>> deep on one drive, to a directory five levels deep on another
>> drive.  I can go back and forth just by typing the drive letter.
>> With one drive, you have to continuously retype in the entire
>> path for which directory you are going to.  I have had to do this,
>> don't ask why, I don't remember specificly, but this was a great
>> benefit.  Sure, limited use of it, but better than the alternative.

> Try doskey, 4dos, or ndos.  You can then
> use the up arrow to get previous commands.

Or toss the entire dos command line in the bin for that sort of thing.

> As for my opinion on a separate partition for data, it's a good idea,

I'm not convinced that its is anymore. It really doesnt have any advantage
over the much more flexible approach of keeping that data in a single
directory tree under a data directory in the root of a single partition.

> but not necessary.  Regardless of how it's done, you should
> keep a backup anyway, so when it comes to reformatting c:,
> it's not too hard to get your data from the backup.

And drives inevitably die or get stolen.

> If you have a 2nd partition for data, you would still keep
> a backup, just in case the whole drive gets trashed, but
> you wouldn't need to do anything during the actual reinstall.

Sure, but its no harder to delete everything
from the single partition except the data tree.

> So the only difference would be that for a single partition,
> you would have to copy the backup stuff back.

You dont necessarily even have to do that.

> Personally, I keep my data on a separate drive, and backup to c:, so
> I don't have a problem regardless of how the first drive is partitioned.

It can make more sense to have a data tree on the boot drive and use
the separate drive as a fast backup destination. The main boot drive is
usually the highest performance drive and if your data is of any size,
you will normally get rather better performance with it on the main drive.

> As for a separate partition for apps, I don't see any point, unless
> they're DOS based, which tend to confide themselves to their own
> directory trees.  Seeing we're talking about Win95 though, usually
> when you delete the registry, you'll have to reinstall all your apps
> anyway, so their location is pretty much irrelevent.  Most have a
> tendency also to overwite configuration files during reinstall, so
> you would have to back these up regardless of what partition it is.

And they mostly install themselves by default
in the Progam Files tree off the root now too.

Whenever you dont use the default install location, there is always
some risk that an install wart will bite you just because its nothing like
as well debugged when using other than the default install location.

Which is what bit him in the first place.

> For a separate partition for games, maybe yes, but not for me.
> I say yes because games tend to put the save-games in their own
> directories, and you won't want to lose them.  Even if you reinstall
> the game, you won't wipe the save-games.  It's not hard however
> to work out where save-games are, and it doesn't take long to back
> them up, hence it's not for me.  If you had lots of little games, each
> with their own save-games in their own directories, then the effort
> involved in backing these up might warrant a separate partition.

Maybe, but there is a lot to be said for using a proper
backup app. Semi manual backups can bite, its very
easy to forget something and its too late when its gone.

> Personally, I keep my games on the second drive,
> mainly for performance reasons, so for again for
> me it doesn't matter what happens to the first drive.

Yeah, but lets not forget that most only have a single drive.

> As for the fragmentation arguement before, then whether it's
> one partition or many, the OS and apps and games take up
> the first part of the partition, and are fairly static.  The temp
> files and documents etc come later, and these are usually the
> only bits that need defragging.  It's only a problem if you install
> something to an already fragmented drive, which shouldn't happen
> anyway, so fragmentation doesn't really affect either arguement.

Specially with the very large drives being discussed.